Our mission is to improve the experience of Chicago's oppressed communities through social theatre.
Leader
Victor Marana
Location
630 W Webster Ave, 1-E Chicago, IL 60614
Our first season will open with a devised play focused on one of the biggest social issues threatening our community nowadays.
Discrimination in America is a collage of scenes that portray different situations of oppression that minorities fight against every day: Racism, gender inequality, LGBTQ discrimination, sexual abuse, among others, are issues that are unfortunately raising in our society day by day. Our goal is to portray several situations that reflect these issues and perform them in front of vulnerable communities to give them a voice and a space to experiment with possible solutions to these oppressions.
Our company performs in different spaces around the city, from schools to prisons.
Based on a specific research the company undertakes, we devise circumstances that best exemplify the theme we are working on and that are powerful enough to create an active participation in our audiences. The playwright team then selects the material and write several scenes that are staged and put together to create the show.
Once the show is staged, we take it to different communities around the city that directly relate to the theme we chose for the season.
The show is performed twice to the audience. The first time, everyone asses and identifies oppressions and conflicts happening during the scenes. The second time, the audience (spect-actors) has the opportunity to stop the performance at any given time and substitute any of the oppressed characters in the show or add new ones. Once on stage, the spect-actors will act/improvise with the ensemble and come up with a solution or alternative to the problem presented on stage. The ensemble will then have to improvise with the spect-actor´s proposal.
Artistic Director (Chicago)
Víctor Maraña is an awarded actor and producer from Mexico City settled in Chicago for the past 3 years. He is the founder of Teatro del Exilio A.C., and the Performing Arts Studio. His Forum Theatre work started 10 years ago with David Psalmon´s Teatro Sin Paredes company where he had the opportunity to tour Mexico performing several Forum Theatre and Invisible Theatre shows. He was also part of the Teatro Sin Paredes´ training program which trained actors in the Theatre of the Oppressed technique. As a teacher, Víctor has worked alongside awarded director Sandra Felix at Mexico´s National Library Theatre Group. He has a Masters Degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where he trained as an actor and physical theatre performer. As a producer, his shows “Exilios” and “The Bald Soprano” have seasoned at the National Theatre in Mexico
Artistic Director (Mexico)
Augusto Boal´s disciple and Bertolt Brecht´s devotee, David Psalmon was born in France in 1973. He holds an MFA in theatre and a BS in sociology by the Sorbonne University. He is a PHD candidate for the same university. His research is focused on Bertolt Brecht´s aesthetics. He is a director, producer, editor and founder of multi-awarded theatre company Teatro sin Paredes (Theatre Without Walls) in Mexico City. He has directed more than 50 shows in France, Irland, Mozambique, Chile, and Mexico, where he settled in 2000. From 1997 to 1999 he was an ensamble member of Boal’s Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed in Paris where he staged several Forum Theatre shows. During his carrer in Mexico, he has performed in more than 500 Forum Theatre shows and trained actors all around the country. David has also taught at the Sorbonne univeristy and is currently a member of Mexico´s National System of Art Creators.
September 10th to September 15th from 10am to 3pm: Training and Devising Process
September-October: Rehearsals
October-May: Performances once a month at schools, community centers, and prisons
Our mission is to help the development and improvement of Chicago´s oppressed communities and vulnerable groups through social theatre. We stage shows based on Augusto Boal´s Forum Theatre techniques where audience members actively participate in the show and try to find solutions to different oppressive situations we encounter in our daily lives.
